decoherence

Josh Rosenau has a post about the supernatural, spinning off recent posts about a recent Calamities of Nature webcomic. Josh makes a point that I think is valid but subtle: The issue with the supernatural is not whether it's part of the universe, but whether it is bound by the same laws as all the other elements of the universe. The bizarre claim about ghosts is that they somehow obey some laws but not others, for no obvious reasons. Something supernatural could, in principle, interact with the universe sometimes but not at others. If it is operating outside of natural laws, that doesn't…
I'm a little cranky after a day of reviewing grant proposals, so it's possible that I'm overreacting. But commenter Neil B has been banging on about quantum measurement for weeks, including not one, not two, but three lengthy comments in Tuesday's dog post. For that reason, I am declaring this post's comments section to be the Official Neil B. Quantum Measurement Thread. Until such time as I declare the subject open again, this is the only thread in which I want to see comments about quantum measurement. Attempts to bring the subject up in comments to other posts-- even other posts having to…